FOUR MORE AND STILL NO PLAYOFF GAMES TO GO: ABC UPS BCS DEAL

ABC and the BCS have agreed to exercise the three-year
option of their current contract along with an additional
one-year extension through the 2006 season (See THE DAILY,
1/27). In Atlanta, Tony Barnhart reports the extension
"will bring more dollars" to the BCS by raising ABC's
current annual payment from $78M to "about" $100M. The per-
team payout of the four BCS bowl "is expected to jump" from
$12.5M to "more than" $15M (ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, 1/28).
WHEEL-ER IS STILL TURNING: ISL VP/College Athletics Jim
Wheeler, whose company was proposing a playoff format, said
that by opting for the current agreement over ISL's plan,
the BCS is "letting $600 million pass" from 2003 to 2006.
SEC Exec Associate Commissioner Mark Womack "admitted that
ISL was offering more money than ABC," but said that the gap
in payments "is not as wide as it seems when ISL's proposal
is fully analyzed." Womack: "Everybody evaluated the ISL
proposal and discussed it over the past year, but upon full
evaluation, we felt it was in our best interest to extend
with ABC." Womack added that there was "little interest" in
a playoff among member of the BCS (N.Y. TIMES, 1/28). USA
TODAY's Wieberg & Carey write that the Big 10 and Pac-10
will "have to soften their anti-playoff stands," as "some
shift might have been signaled this month" when the Div. I
BOD "instructed NCAA President Cedric Dempsey to continue to
discuss ISL's now-tabled playoff proposal." Wheeler feels
hie is "making headway" (USA TODAY, 1/28).